Integrating Geohazard Demand and Structural Capacity Modelling within a Probabilistic Design Framework for Offshore Arctic Pipelines

摘要

The design of buried offshore pipelines in ice environments must consider extreme load events. Current practice for the characterization of geotechnical loads (I.e. system demand) and pipeline mechanical resistance (I.e. system capacity) has limitations due to idealizations and uncertainties associated with statistics of physical data sets, experimental techniques and engineering models used in analysis and design. Advancements in computational methods have provided improved engineering tools to analyse complex nonlinear geotechnical failure processes, load transfer and pipeline/soil interaction events and pipeline failure mechanisms. Probabilistic methods provide an objective, rational and quantitative framework to optimize design options with respect to technical, economic and environmental criteria that meet specified target safety levels.